


the creature of manor road

by edenfell (ricecrispbees)



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Filipino Character, Horror, M/M, Minor Background Relationships, Survival Horror, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:14:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21848761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricecrispbees/pseuds/edenfell
Summary: ` “There is one story,” He said in a low voice, Vicky and I huddled close to him in curiosity, “That they told me of a beast whose name you should never say, lest you inadvertently attract it to you. It is a shapeshifter, much like the aswang of your culture, but it is much, much more terrifying.The beast is rumored to be a corrupt medicine man that can quite literally shed its flesh in favor of taking up an animal form. They are most often seen as owls, or chickens, or deer. My aunt’s neighbor once said she saw one disguised as one of her cattle, and that neighbor moved away shortly after she told me this. It is a creature highly respected and feared by the Navajo people, and it is called--”Paul tore off a scrap of paper from his notebook and scribbled something out in his immaculate handwriting. He gave Vicky and I the paper with a finger raised to his lips.The paper read “Yenaldooshi- the skinwalker”. `
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> here's my second time attempting horror with these three, not related to the other story I've published with them in the past. let me know if you enjoyed it please :) i know it's not original in the slightest & the sk/nwalker trope is really overused at this point but i rly wanted to write horror sooo here we go!!

It was, for the first time in about a week now, not a dark and stormy night. Conditions were rather pleasant, in fact, and it was for this reason that my neighbor Vicky and I had decided we ought to spend some time together after school.

“Forget about homework,” She’d remarked the day before, leaning against the railing of her apartment’s balcony with a cold soda in hand, “It’s finally nice out for once, and I’d like to do something besides sit on my ass working all evening.”

The pair of us, being in our last year of high school and aching for a stimulation not found in the classroom setting, decided we’d do a bit of ‘urban exploration’, as Vicky called it. It was a recent interest of hers, and there was something alluring about the exploration of abandoned property in her eyes, so being the pushover I was I agreed to the idea she proposed to me then. Just down the road from our apartment complex, there was this long, winding stretch of terrain known as Manor Road. Nobody that we knew lived down that way, and in fact if you asked around people would tell you no one lived down there at all. The woods in that area were so thick one could not see farther than 10 feet into them, and no matter what the time of day or weather, the place always seemed to give off a dark aura. 

As children, Vicky and I used to be terrified of the place, particularly of the stories our Filipino parents would tell about it to scare us into submission. They told tales of a tall, lanky, shapeshifting creature known as the  _ aswang _ . It was said to be a creature posing as a human that transformed into a beast by night and feasted upon human flesh. Nowadays, I no longer believed in such a thing, and neither did Vicky, so it did not take much for us to convince ourselves that going down Manor Road was a good idea. However, I was still slightly anxious at the prospect simply because I had never been, and I always was a bit on the anxious side.

Vicky invited a mutual friend of ours along for the adventure just before our last class of the day let out. He was a handsome male student named Paul, and I had developed quite the infatuation with him ever since he transferred to our school in freshman year. Paul was very different from Victoria and I in that he was tall, fair-skinned, and from a European family, so when he hung around us he stuck out like a sore thumb. We enjoyed his friendship regardless, however, and were the best of friends all throughout high school.

“Paul,” She excitedly turned around in her desk to face him. “Jaxon and I are going to Manor Road tomorrow night, just to look around and see if there’s anything cool. You should come with us!”

Paul’s eyes, a lovely robin’s-egg-blue in color, widened. “Manor Road? Vicky, you’re insane. Absolutely not, it’s too dangerous and my parents would kick my ass for it if I went.”

“Uh, so just don’t tell them?” Vicky rolled her eyes. “You can just say you were at my apartment studying.”

“I’m not lying to my parents for you, Vick.” Paul crossed his arms. This was something they butted heads on a lot; Vicky held her parents in contempt more often than not and Paul thought of his in the opposite respect. “Sorry, but you’ll need a better excuse than that.”

“Hm…” Vicky thought it over for a moment and she got a twinkle in her eye that told me she was up to no good. “Well, Jaxon’s been talking about pussying out and not going as well. If he’s not joining me, then you might as well be the one to do it.” She batted her eyes innocently and I groaned, embarrassment burning me from the inside out that she would even think to drag  _ me _ into this. Paul turned his attention to me and I felt my face go hot.

“Well…” He said with a sigh, “I can’t say I blame you for wanting to back out.” I did not, in fact, want to back out, but I wasn’t about to tell him that when he spoke to me so kindly like that. “Manor Road is  _ terrifying _ . Have you heard the stories?”

“Of the  _ aswang _ ?” I chimed in. “Yeah, my parents used to tell it to me all the time. They said it would come up to our apartment all the way from Manor Road and eat me alive if I was a bad kid. As if something like that were even  _ remotely _ possible!”

Paul looked at me like I had three heads. “Um...not the kind of stories I meant, but now I’m a bit concerned about you and your upbringing.” Vicky and I laughed. “But no, I meant the stories of the beast that resides in the woods there.”

He went on to explain that some aunt on his mom’s side of the family was married to a Navajo man, and they lived on a reservation some ways out west. The aunt and uncle would tell him in a hushed voice stories from Navajo folklore every time he came out to visit, and the seriousness with which they conveyed these tales left him shaking in terror every time.

“There is one story,” He said in a low voice, Vicky and I huddled close to him in curiosity, “That they told me of a beast whose name you should never say, lest you inadvertently attract it to you. It is a shapeshifter, much like the  _ aswang _ of your culture, but it is much, much more terrifying.

The beast is rumored to be a corrupt medicine man that can quite literally shed its flesh in favor of taking up an animal form. They are most often seen as owls, or chickens, or deer. My aunt’s neighbor once said she saw one disguised as one of her cattle, and that neighbor moved away shortly after she told me this. It is a creature highly respected and feared by the Navajo people, and it is called--”

Paul tore off a scrap of paper from his notebook and scribbled something out in his immaculate handwriting. He gave Vicky and I the paper with a finger raised to his lips.

The paper read “ _ Yenaldooshi- the skinwalker _ ”.


	2. Chapter 2

“Yeh-nal-doo--” Vicky struggled to pronounce the word and Paul hushed her fiercely.

“Idiot!” He scolded her, pointedly ignoring the stares some of our classmates shot his way. “Did I not say to never say it aloud?! Me talking about it alone is a stupid enough move as it is!”

Vicky handed the paper back with a casual eye roll. “Oh,  _ please _ , Paul. We’re in New Jersey, and the Navajo live all the way across the country from here. Do you really think one of those could be lurking all the way up here?”

“Do you really think one of your Filipino creatures could be living all the way here from across the ocean?” Paul shot back with a raised eyebrow.

“I already told you none of us believe in the  _ aswang _ being real anymore.” She scoffed. “And anyway, the only thing we’d have to worry about here in theory is the Jersey Devil if we’re just going off legend. The closest thing I’ve ever seen to  _ that _ was a goat at the petting zoo. We’ll be fine. The only thing on Manor Road to fear is fear itself.”

Paul sighed and the two of them stared in silence at one another for a long while. 

“Fine,” He said eventually, turning to me. “I’ll go. But Jaxon, you’d better come with us, too.”

My heart thudded in my chest and I saw Vicky giving me a sly look from the corner of my eye. I was already planning to go with them to Manor Road anyway, but if I’d ever had thoughts of changing my mind this was the thing that did away with it for good.

“Alright,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as nervous as I was. “Sounds great. Uh, what time should we meet?”

The bell rang and everyone got up from their seats to leave.

“8 o’clock sharp at the very edge of the road. Be there or else!” Vicky didn’t give us a chance to reply before she was out the door, leaving Paul and I alone to scramble to put our stuff away together. I was shaking so hard from being alone around him that I kept dropping my books, and finally Paul knelt over to help me put them in my bag.

“So you’re going?” He asked me, smiling. I nodded.

“If only to make sure Vic doesn’t kill herself running off somewhere by her lonesome.” I joked. Paul laughed, a sweet sound that made my heart ache with the tenderness of it.

“Awesome. I’ll see you tonight.” He said, and as he left the classroom, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking the same of me as I thought of him.

  
  


I shivered and pulled my jacket tightly around myself as I got closer to the edge of Manor Road. I could see my female friend standing under a dim, flickering street lamp, and Paul was next to her. I smiled and waved, getting their attention, and Vicky stomped out her cigarette to talk to me.

“There you are!” She said with her trademark manic grin. In one hand, she held a flashlight. Paul had an identical one, and Vicky reached into her jacket pocket with her free hand to produce a third. “Take this. We’re gonna need it.”

I took the flashlight. It was heavy, and the button made a loud clicking noise as I turned it on. “Thanks,” I said, looking behind them at the winding road that disappeared into the forest. “It sure is creepy here at night.”

“Tell me about it,” Paul agreed, and in a moment of blinding affection I thought I’d like nothing more than that, to lay under this sky sparsely dotted with stars and tell him about this adventure and life and everything and nothing at all. Vicky must have noticed me zoning out because she stepped on the toe of my shoe and twisted her foot hard.

“Ouch!” I groaned and retaliated with a kick to the shin. “Asshole!”

“Nerd!” She shot back. “Are we doing this or not?!”

Paul and I looked at one another.

“I guess we are,” He said and turned his flashlight on. “Lead the way, Vicky.”

Vicky turned on her foot and we started down the path. “So,” She began, her flashlight carving through the darkness and illuminating everything for a good thirty feet, “I looked at a map of this area online.”

“There’s maps of this place?” It somehow didn’t occur to me that anyone would have the gall to come back to this part of town, much less map it out.

“Of course there are,” Paul deadpanned, “There’s maps of everywhere.”

“Truly!” Vicky agreed. “I went on Google Earth to get an overhead view of the place. Trees everywhere, as far as the eye can see. You can hardly see this road from above, in fact.”

I looked up and saw the thick canopy of the surrounding trees did in fact obscure our view of the night sky.

“But,” Her voice lowered and she whispered to us excitedly, “I found something really,  _ really _ interesting down this way. It’s this giant, wooden house aaaall the way at the end of the road. I think that’s why this place is called ‘manor road’, in fact.”

I stopped. “Wait, so this is someone’s property?” I asked, incredulous. It was one thing to go exploring in a random patch of woods at night, but it was another to trespass on a person’s property entirely. I now had the mental image of an old hermit chasing us off his land with a shotgun, yelling like anything.

Vicky shook her head. “Not anymore. I checked. The place has been abandoned for ages, and nobody owns it that I could find. When you think about it, it’s basically public property.”

“I don’t think that’s how the concept of public property works,” Paul commented, but neither Vicky nor I paid him much attention.

“And anyway,” Vic shrugged, “We’re just here for a cheap thrill. It’s not like anyone would voluntarily want to live out here anyway, so we should be fine. Can’t get in trouble with the law if there’s no one to call for it in the first place.”

“The way you said that makes it sound like whoever would be out here to snitch on us is dead,” I teased, and she pretended to be shocked.

“Maybe,” She said, wiggling her fingers ominously, “They  _ are _ !”

The three of us laughed, talking and bantering back and forth as we walked up the winding road that seemed to go on forever. Dense forest surrounded us on all sides, and every now and again I thought I saw the movement of a squirrel or bird from the corner of my eye. The funny thing was, however, that the entire area was almost completely silent. No crickets or frogs making noise, no scuttling-about of squirrels and chipmunks and no flapping of bird’s wings. It was like the whole of the forest was trapped in a vacuum of some sort, and I pointed this out to the group.

“Seriously, it’s like we’re the only ones around to make any sound in the first place!” I said.

“That can’t be the case,” Paul returned, “I’ve seen squirrels here and there off the path. But you’re right, it is oddly quiet even for this time of night.”

Vicky hummed in thought. “You know, I think I remember my dad telling me once that if the forest ever goes silent like this, it means there’s a predator nearby.”

I don’t know why, but the chills those words put me through were enough to make me stop walking and huddle into my jacket like a child. Paul and Vicky stopped, too.

“You just  _ had _ to put it like that?” Paul raised an eyebrow. “The local wildlife might be less active at this time of night, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “Paul’s right. And if there’s any predators nearby, it’s probably just a coyote.”

Vicky thought this over for a moment. “Sounds reasonable,” She said, and the three of us kept walking. Every now and again, I found myself glancing around at our surroundings. There was nothing but trees everywhere, on all sides of us, and even as I pointed my flashlight into the woods I could not see a sign of anything living in them. There wasn’t even a sign of the squirrels and chipmunks I thought I saw earlier.

“So how long does this road go for, anyway?” Paul asked. He was also looking around nervously as we walked and I had to force myself not to reach out and take his hand.

“About half a mile, I think,” Said Vicky. She checked the time on her phone. “We should be getting into view of that house any second now…”

And just as we turned the next corner on the road, there it was. Just atop a gentle hill, there sat a massive-looking house, blackened by the darkness. The three of us pointed our lights up at it. It was truly ancient-looking, with boarded-up windows and patches of rot creeping up the sides. There were no cars parked nearby and no light emanating from the house, so it was reasonable to assume it was in fact abandoned the way Vicky had said it was.

“There it is,” She breathed, that manic grin from earlier spreading across her face. “Check it out! It’s massive! Just imagine what the inside looks like!”

“An unkempt mess, I’d imagine.” Paul was not nearly as impressed by this place as she was.

“Come on! Let’s go check it out!” Vicky took off running down the road before Paul or I could say anything. We broke into sprints as well, however, and caught up to her easily.

“Vic, are you insane?!” I grabbed her by the arm and demanded. “We can’t just go marching in there! Have you lost your mind? What if--”

She pulled her arm away from me. “You agreed to come out here, Jax. The place is abandoned and there’s nothing to worry about except  _ maybe _ a coyote or two, like you said. It’s waaay too late to pussy out now!”

I looked over at Paul to see if he’d back me up, and for once, he didn’t.

“She’s right,” He shrugged. “You agreed to this, so you gotta suffer through it.”

I didn’t say anything and simply let Vicky lead us further up to the house, until we finally stood less than twenty feet away from the thing. It was even more massive up close, and the porch was in good enough condition to walk on, so I followed my two friends as they approached the double doors in the front. 

“Yep,” Vicky whistled, appraising the spacious porch area. “This is one big-ass house.” She attempted to open one of the doors but found it was locked. Jiggling the knob a few times, Vicky thought for a moment and then took out her wallet.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“Jimmying this bitch open,” She replied. She took out a credit card and stuck it in the crack between the doors. After some twisting and bending and even more jiggling, the door finally popped open with a long, slow creak. 

“Impressive!” Paul remarked and pointed his flashlight inside. Vicky smiled proudly and the three of us looked into the house, using our lights as guides. Surprisingly, the foyer of the house looked empty and was in pretty neat condition. Some mold had begun to flourish on the wallpaper, creeping upwards like a vine, and there were a few small end-tables sprinkled down the hallway. One had a mildewed vase filled with long-dead flowers, and otherwise, that was it.

Vicky stepped inside. “This place is awesome!” She remarked with wide, delighted eyes. To the direct left of her there was another room, blocked off by a chipped white door, and just down the hallway we could see what had to be a staircase and some other rooms. “I wonder how old it is.”

“The internet didn’t tell you that?” Paul asked, also stepping inside. I followed suit, staying close to them as anxiety began to hit.

“The internet told me that no one actually knows how old it is,” She returned, “But judging from the looks of this place alone I’d say it’s not super ancient or anything.”

There was a sound from somewhere in the foyer. It was like a blink-and-you’d-miss-it sort of sound, a clicking noise so brief I thought for a moment that I had imagined it. The next thing I knew, however, the front door slammed shut behind us and the three of us nearly jumped out of our skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //drop a kudos & maybe even a comment if you're enjoying the story so far :)


	3. Chapter 3

Paul screamed, “ _ Shit! _ What the hell just happened?!”

“I don’t know!” Vicky replied, and turned around. The second door, the one we hadn’t used to get inside, was built so that part of it hung off the end of the door and obscured the crack between the two. “Oh, come on! I can’t use my card like this!”

Paul pointed out the fact that there were rotating locks on the back of the knobs that she could mess with, and sheepishly Vicky turned one of them. As expected, the first door opened without a problem now that it was unlocked.

“Alright,” She propped it open with her foot. “In case of an emergency, we need a way out. Paul, go into the yard and see if there’s a rock or something in the garden we can hold this open with.”

Paul nodded and bounded off the porch to look. I watched, pointing my flashlight into the yard of overgrown grass, and watched as he rummaged through an unkempt flower bed for a stone.

“Got one!” He held up a massive rock victoriously and turned around to come back up the steps when he suddenly froze in place. Vicky and I froze, too. Paul was staring off into the woods, the rock in one hand and his light in the other.

“What is it?” Vicky said in a low voice.

“I think I see something,” Paul replied. His voice was trembling slightly. “But I’m sure it was nothing, right?”

Ever so slowly, he raised his flashlight up and pointed it in the direction of the treeline. At first, I didn’t see anything but rows upon rows of trees, and then  _ one of them moved _ .

It was only a flash of motion but it nearly knocked me off my feet. There was  _ something _ crouched between two trees, skinny-looking and pale like the tree’s bark, and its head snapped up to look at us. Vicky gasped. Paul made a choking sound. I very nearly pissed myself.

“What on god’s green earth is  _ that? _ ” Vicky uttered, her eyes wide and her hands shaking. 

Paul shook his head. “Maybe I’m just seeing things,” He said, and turned to come back inside. Just as he did, however, the thing let out a horrific screeching sound and charged at him from the trees.

“Oh,  _ fuck _ !” Vicky screamed. Paul saw the thing coming and turned white as a ghost. Thinking quickly, he chucked the rock in his hand at it and sprinted up the porch steps. It hit the thing in the face and it let out another blood curdling screech. Vicky slammed the door shut as our friend ran inside, locked it, and the three of us piled against it like a collective barricade.

“Oh my god,” Was all I could say.

“What the fuck have we just done?!” Paul was hyperventilating, pale as a sheet.

“Why did I think this was ever a good idea?!” Of the three of us, Vicky was the most panicked and sounded like she was about to cry.

“Vic, shhh,” I reassured her. “It’s okay.”

As I said this, we heard the shuffling about of something on the back porch. We held our breath. Vicky silently began to cry.

_ Snff, snff… _

Something was smelling at the door. It sounded like our neighbor’s husky when he was exploring the hallways or looking for somewhere to pee outside.

_ Snff snff snff… _

_ Screeee. Screeeeeee. _

It was scratching against the door now, dragging its nails, or claws, against the wood with agonizing slowness.

“What the hell?!” Paul mouthed at us. It was like a dog was trying to convince its owner to let it inside.

“Vic,” He whispered in a voice we could barely hear, “Move over. I’m going to look through the peephole.”

Vicky ducked down so he could look over her and through the peephole. He squinted, then frowned and pulled away.

“Nothing.” He said.

“Oh,” I breathed a sigh of relief. “So it’s gone now?”

“No,” Paul looked at me, deathly serious, “I mean I can’t see  _ anything _ through the hole. It’s just black.”

“Dammit,” Vicky cursed, “Maybe it’s covered from the outside. How lovely.”

The three of us stood there, sandwiched against the double doors like our lives depended on it, until suddenly Paul had an idea. By now, the scratching and sniffing had stopped, and so it was just the three of us bathing in silent darkness until he crept away from the door to approach the other one just to the left of us. He attempted to turn the handle but found it was locked.

“Gimme your credit card, Vic.” He whispered, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

“Why?”

“There might be a window I can peek through. See if that  _ thing _ is still on the porch.” Paul said. “If not, maybe we can make a break for it.”

“Good idea,” I whispered, wanting nothing more at that moment than to get the hell out of this creepy house. Coming here was a bad idea, and I should have known better from the start.

“Fine.” Vicky fished her card out of her pocket and handed it to him. “Be quick. I can’t stand being here another minute.”

A funny thing to hear from the one who dragged us out here in the first place, I thought, but was nonetheless grateful she was thinking the same as Paul and I for once. Paul took the card and attempted to replicate the method she’d used on the door a few minutes ago, and with a bit of effort, the door popped right open. It creaked as Paul pushed it back and revealed a wide, dark room with the only source of light being the window right up against the wall.

Paul crouched down onto the dusty, dirty old floor and began to crawl over to the window. I watched, waiting to see what he’d do next, when I suddenly became aware of the sound of something just behind the front door. I froze. Vicky froze, as she’d clearly heard it as well, but Paul apparently hadn’t as he peeked over the rim of the windowsill in the side room.

Silence.

The floorboards beneath Paul’s knees creaked subtly.

“I don’t see anything,” He whispered. He ducked back beneath the windowsill, moved a bit closer to where we stood, and-- “ _ Fuck!” _

“What is it?!” Vicky asked.

Paul ducked again beneath the window, eyes wide and face white as a ghost. “There’s something on the porch. I think it saw me.”


	4. Chapter 4

I was about to sputter out a response when whatever the  _ thing _ was began to scream. It was a horrific wailing noise, like a woman in labor mixed with the cry of a wolf, and it scared us so bad Vicky and I jumped away from the door.

“What do we do?!” Vicky asked, tears running down her face, and that was when the banging started. The doors shook violently as the beast on the other side pounded away on them like it was going to break them down, and I began to panic.

“There’s gotta be another way out of here!” I said, trying to keep my head clear and optimistic.

“We could smash a window and make a break for it.” Paul suggested, joining the two of us in the foyer and trembling like a leaf.

“No way,” Vicky blubbered, “‘S way too risky.”

“Yeah, I’m not about to make a run for it with that  _ thing  _ out-” I was cut off by a particularly hard  _ thunk _ coming from the door, and the three of us watched in horror as one door began to crack from how hard the thing on the other side was beating on it.

Paul said what was on everyone’s mind then. “Oh,  _ fuck _ .”

“Split up,” Vicky blurted. “It’s going to try and get in. We need to find another way out.” She checked her phone, her hands shaking so bad she nearly dropped it. “The reception here isn’t terrible, so just say something in the group chat if you find something!”

“Are you out of your mind?!” I demanded. That was the sort of suggestion made by The One White Kid of the group in a horror movie that ultimately gets everyone killed, and there was no way in hell I was about to follow through with the idea. “We need to stay together! What if--”

The beast struck the door again and the crack grew wider. Vicky looked at me.

“We don’t have a choice.” She whispered. “On three, everybody run. One…”

_ Bang! Bang! _

The doors shook again and so did my entire body.

The thing on the other side let out a growl.

“Three!” Paul exclaimed and the three of us all bolted in different directions. Paul ran back down the hallway, scrambling up the wooden stairs in desperation. Vicky slid into the side room like a baseball player diving home and shut the door. I took off down the hallway and ducked into one of the side rooms right as I heard the sound of the door shattering, followed by another bone-chilling shriek.

Hands shaking like anything, I turned and locked the door behind me and pulled out my phone. Turning on a light switch was far too risky at this point. My phone’s flashlight revealed that the room I was in appeared to be some kind of abandoned kitchen, pots and pans stacked up in a sink and a thin layer of dust coating an oven in the corner. There were two windows that hadn’t been boarded up like the rest of the home, one above the sink and the other beside the fridge on the opposite side of the room. It was pitch dark outside, and that more than anything made my blood run cold.

I opened my messaging app.

> _ where are you guys? im in a kitchen _

A few seconds later I got a response from the other two.

>handsome guy from world history:  _ upstairs closet. cant see shit _

>vickyyyy:  _ front room p was in  _

>vickyyyy:  _ i hear the thing outside _

I decided to refrain from going for the low-hanging fruit in Paul’s text about being in a closet and instead decided to look around the kitchen a little more. Perhaps, besides the grimy looking cookware in the sink, there was something I could use for self defense. My eyes wandered onto the kitchen table where a dinner knife sat, unused and gathering dust for who knows how long, when something else caught my attention.

> _ cool _

> _ there’s footprints all over the kitchen floor _

> _ and i dont think theyre from a person. _

I took a flash photo of the dusty prints that circled the kitchen table. They could have passed for human footprints if humans had toes the length of their heels that almost made it resemble the hands of a lizard. I sent it to the group chat.

> handsome guy from world history:  _ fuck me running _

> vickyyyy:  _ jesus christ _

> vickyyyy:  _ so we’re DEAD dead huh _

I shivered and took the knife off the table, dusting it off on my jacket.

> _ not yet. stay quiet. there’s two windows here we might be able to snea _

I accidentally sent the unfinished text out of fright as I heard the floorboards outside the kitchen door squeak.

> _ paul please tell me that’s you outside. _

My heart was thumping in my chest and I ducked underneath the kitchen table. There was a thick tablecloth hanging off of it that made it so you couldn’t see what, if anything, lie beneath, but it also meant I couldn’t see the door or anything else in the room at all.

The phone got a message a few seconds later.

> handsome guy from world history:  _ no still in closet. sorry j. ur fucked _

_ God. Damn. It. _

...Snff, snff.

There was that damned sniffing noise again, coming from just outside the door. I was beginning to question at this point if the thing I saw in the yard was even real and if we were just being hunted by a hungry coyote or something now. If it weren’t for the fact that the creature literally broke down the front door, I would have been more inclined to believe that. I held my breath, hoping this thing wouldn’t attempt to break down this door, either, and to my surprise it didn’t. I heard the sound of something trodding further down the hallway and I breathed a sigh of relief before I realized now, if my thought process was correct, the thing was headed for the stairwell.

> _ paul i think its coming for you now pls b careful _

> handsome guy from world history:  _ fuck. _

> handsome guy from world history:  _ nice knowing u _

My heart wrenched. There was no way in hell I was about to let that creature hurt any of my friends, much less  _ him _ , but at the same time I had absolutely no idea what it was we were up against. The only thing to do was keep the beast distracted and find a way out. I climbed out from beneath the table, knife in hand, and looked around the room with my phone’s flashlight again. It was at that moment I realized I still had the big flashlight from Vicky, but the light it gave off was far too bright for it to be safe in this circumstance, so it remained in my pocket in favor of the cell phone and kitchen knife.

There were no other doors in the kitchen. It somehow took me this long to realize it, but when I did it made my stomach wrench. Either I’d have to break out through a window or go out into the hallway where the creature had just been. I sent a private message to Vicky.

> _ everything alright over there? _

She replied with an affirmation and I sighed in relief. If she was alright, even if just for the moment, it probably meant I could go back down the hallway to where she was without a problem. My hands were sweating so hard I thought I’d drop the knife any second now and I shut my phone’s flashlight off for safety. I decided to check in on Paul, too, just to be safe.

> _ you good? _

…

No response.


End file.
